For Marigold, the eternally patient, who gave this a good beta:o)

The Troubles had come and gone, and the last of the Ruffians had been rooted out, and after the long winter of fear and sorrow the entire Shire could look forward to a springtime of peace. On this day a table had been set up in a sheltered garden of Brandy Hall, so that the Master and his wife could entertain in high style in the sunshine. Merry and Saradoc carried Esmeralda to her chair and crowned her with a wreath of flowers. Pippin then insisted on singing her romantic courting songs on bended knee, until she threatened to sneak into the laundry and petrify all of his small clothes with starch, and Saradoc laughed until he cried. After they had eaten and the servants had cleared the plates away, Pippin used his silver teaspoon to flick crumbs at Merry, who forgot his dignity entirely and retaliated by dropping a grasshopper down Pippin's black and silver surcoat.

Eventually, after a lot of yelping and leaping about, Pippin managed to fish out the poor grasshopper and laid it in his saucer, with a dab of honey to help him recuperate. "I shall pay you back for this when we get to Crickhollow," Pippin said grimly. "I'll put so much salt in your porridge your mouth will pucker 'til Overlithe."

But Merry only laughed. "Aha, you've given the game away already. I will certainly make my own porridge, then, and my own tea, too. So there."

Saradoc was still wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes, but now he sobered. "What? What about Crickhollow? Is Frodo moving back to Buckland?"

"No, not that we know of,” Merry said. "It's just, well, Pippin and I thought we might stay there a long while, sort of like a nice, restful holiday for us, now that things are getting settled."

"The old furniture is all there now, and all we need to do is tidy it up somewhat and lay in some food," Pippin put in. "The peace and quiet would do us both a world of good. We were planning on riding out there today."

"Today!" Saradoc laughed. "Why, you've scarcely arrived! You needn't go all the way to that dusty old Crickhollow house to have a holiday, you may stay right here in Brandy Hall for as long as you like. Your old rooms are all prepared, and I'm sure Esmeralda has planned several parties to welcome you home."

As a matter of fact, Esmeralda had planned a party or two, and she was quite looking forward to them, but the suddenly weary look of her son, and the concern on the face of her nephew made her wonder if that was such a good idea, after all. "But we needn't have any such thing, if it's not what you want, dear," she said. "It's only that you were lost to us for so long, and so many folk wish to see you again and thank you for all you've done."

Merry looked down at the tablecloth. "I have a feeling I may be very poor company for a while, Mother."

"Whatever do you mean?" Saradoc said.

"You can't keep it from them forever, Merry," Pippin said.

"I know," Merry sighed. "You both know a bit about what Pippin and I were up to, while we were away with Frodo." He and Pippin smiled at each other sadly. "Well, mostly with Frodo."

"Of course," Esmeralda said. It had come out in drips and drabs, a fabulous story of Elves and Black Riders, sieges and battles and armies, a great white city and talking trees, and if she hadn't heard it from the lips of her own son and nephew, she never would've believed it. "Although I'm sure there is more to the tale." But she feared to hear it, and the teacup rattled in the saucer as she put down her cup.

Saradoc, bless him, might be able to pretend that nothing about them had truly changed, but she saw them both with a mother's eye: Not just the scars on Merry's wrists, and on his brow, the fading white stripes of the lash on Pippin's legs, but a kind of quietness neither of them had possessed before, as if in their time away one year of growing up had done for ten. A hobbit didn’t earn such scars, or such a quietness, from getting caught in a bramble-bush.

"I've told you how I rode into battle with the Men of Rohan," Merry went on. "The Rohirrim they call themselves, the Horse-Lords, and some of the finest people I've ever been privileged to know. I’ve told you how I rode with the Lady Eowyn to the Battle of the Pelennor fields, how the great flying beast came down, and we saw Theoden King fall. The horses were going mad with fear. But I haven't told you how Windfola threw us and then," Merry's voice faltered. "Then He was there."

"The Witch-King," Pippin said in a low voice.

The Witch-King of Angmar had been a mere nursery story to Saradoc for all of his life, a name used to frighten little hobbits into good behavior, a nightmare with no place in the waking world. He might have scoffed if Pippin hadn't sounded so deadly serious, and if Merry's face hadn't been so pale. He was feeling a bit peaked himself. "What, that terrible creature from the old tales?"

"The very same, Uncle," Pippin said, with a touch of pride. "And Merry brought him down."

"Not me," Merry said, shivering. "Not entirely, I only helped. Eowyn finished him. He couldn't even see me, I was so small, just a crawling thing in the mud. It was Eowyn he was bent on, and I couldn't let her die alone, could I? So beautiful, and hopeless, and desperate. So I crept up and stabbed Him in the knee and my sword burned all away to cinders, and my arm became so cold."

"Merry!" Saradoc, stood up, alarmed, and put his hand on Merry's cheek, which had paled to the color of parchment. "Merry, enough! Look at me!" Merry's eyes were seeing something far away, and for the briefest moment the sunlit Shire disappeared, and Saradoc stood with his son on a field of torn earth soured with spilled blood, cowering under a dreadful shadow of fear. "That's well over, my lad, you don't need to tell us anymore."

Pippin quickly poured a cup of tea. Esmeralda forced it into Merry's hands, which had clenched into fists on the table. "Shh, Merry, Merry dear, you don't have to remember."

"King's man," Merry said hoarsely, clutching the cup. "King's man, I said I was." He shook his head and took a deep breath. "I'm all right, Mother. Well, well, at any rate, I fell under the Shadow after the siege, and Aragorn-that is, the King himself healed me, and the Lady Eowyn, and Pippin's Captain, as well. But my arm was a bit stiff for quite a long time before it was better, and lately it's been giving me some trouble again. I think it may always give me trouble, this time of year."

"Don't let him make light of it," Pippin said. "It was a near thing then, and no doubt it will land him in bed now. I begged him to stay on here where there were lots of hobbits to tend him, rather than go on to Crickhollow, but that would have meant telling what his deed had done to him, and he didn't want to frighten you. And I suppose we were both hoping that Merry was merely tired and a few days of peace and rest would set him right. We have seen some wonderful things out there in the world, and dreadful things, too, that would freeze a hobbit's blood, and we had hoped to leave the dreadful things behind. We were hoping the Shadow of the Pelennor wouldn't follow us home."

"And has it?" Saradoc asked, ever the practical hobbit. If there was any sort of cure within the Shire for this ailment, or a healer with the skill to apply it, he would send hobbits far and wide to find them. "Does it feel the same?"

"Not quite the same, thankfully." Merry frowned. "If before it was like falling through the ice into dark water, now it's more numb, as if I've walked for a long, long way in the cold. Here." He lifted his mother's hand and placed it over his own.

Esmeralda held her breath. Her son's right hand felt quite chilled at first, then slowly warmed under the press of her fingers. "What must we do, then?"

“Pop him into bed at the first sign of weariness,” Pippin said firmly. “Pile the quilts on, keep him warm and pour broth down him, as you did when he was a little lad-”

“Keep me company,” Merry added. “Talk to me, sing and joke, pester me with visitors and drive me mad with riddles. Remind me that I’m truly back in the Shire and safe, with other hobbits around me. Tell me that the bad things I’ve seen are a dream now, and home is what's real. Hold my hand. There’s no Shadow that can withstand that.”

Saradoc picked up his napkin and wiped at his eyes. He really must remind the gardeners not to cut the grass during Tea. “We’ll do all of that, son.”

Esmeralda put her arms around Merry and he leaned his head on her shoulder. How many times in the past he had done the same, when he had still been a little thing small enough to fit in her lap. Her poor boy, her poor, brave boy! If only it was as easy to comfort him now. “We’ll fight it tooth and nail, love, with all of our might.”

“I couldn’t ask for more than that,” Merry said. He turned to Pippin, who had already stood vigil over him once, under much more hopeless circumstances. He would spare him this time, if he could. "But you needn't stay, Pip. You may go on to Crickhollow, if you'd like. I‘ll catch up when I'm on my feet again."

"Leaving me to do all the work of cleaning the place, I suppose," Pippin said, "While you remain behind to be petted and spoiled and fussed over by every pretty lass in Buckland. Hah!" He picked up a piece of biscuit and began to arm his teaspoon. "You won‘t be rid of me so easily. I'm staying right here, and Gandalf's biggest Goblin-Cracker couldn't blast me out."

"Bother, there go my secret plans," Merry said, reaching across the table to slap Pippin‘s arm. "I'm an open book to you, cousin."

“Indeed you are,” Pippin said smugly, squinting so as to get the proper angle to let fly with his crumb. “A terribly dull one, too, with no pictures.”

Merry quickly snatched Pippin's catapult away, then gave him a rap on the knuckles with the bowl of the spoon. He grinned. "Hah, yourself."

But the Master and Mistress of the Hall saw them smile fondly at each other, and Pippin lifted Merry’s hand and kissed it before the weapon was removed to the far side of the tea tray.

*********

the end